I'm really looking forward to Jae Sabol's response ITT, I want to be convinced it's legit but only if it's actually legit.

That said, now that it's been pointed out to me, the more I look the more of that new-age guru holistic yoga spirit crystal stuff I see. If their intent really is pure, I think they'd do much much better to distance themselves from *any* spirituality at all. If the website was purely scientific or engineering in nature I'd be much more comfortable, but the entire 50 pages of The Highest Buzzwords We Can Keep Repeating that they bury the real information in are probably the biggest hurdle to taking them seriously.

It just looks like they put way way more focus, effort, and attention to verbosely detailing their social philosophy endlessly than to the actual data. This may not be true, as there is data there as well, but it certainly looks like it.

I think the biggest point One Community is missing, if they are legit, is that the very simple idea of showing the world that a community can be sustainable and still very comfortable thanks to technology, is more important than their ideas about socially living together and all that Highest Good Of All crap. I mean I'm all for considering what's best for everyone, but the cult-like The Highest Good Of All repetition is very off-putting and the whole holistic new-age stuff should be left out of it entirely, as that's individual "beliefs" and many of us want no part of that.

Also I really want an idea as to their funding progress. Their idea will cost millions of dollars. They seem to have some figures in mind already for what they need to spend to get started, so some kind of percentage as to how close they are, updated as more funding comes in, would go a long way toward silencing the Scam-o-meter. I mean, I can't tell from the website if they are two months or three years away from actually building something in the real world. In fact I can't seem to find anywhere in there that they even know when they expect to begin. They have a 5-10 year plan for after they start but nothing about how long from right now do they put down the first sandbag.

It's good that Jae Sabol is willing to come here and address our criticisms directly. Like I keep saying, I want to be convinced... but I wont convince myself. It's against my religion. Hence, this thread.

« Last Edit: July 28, 2016, 04:54:06 am by trix »

Logged

There's good news tonight. And bad news. First, the bad news: there is no good news. Now, the good news: you don't have to listen to the bad news.Zen Without Zen Masters

Quote from: Cain

Gender is a social construct. As society, we get to choose your gender.

I’m Jae, the founder of One Community. Someone emailed me this forum so I joined so I could comment here and address as many of the points as possible. I'll do this to the best of my ability in the order they were presented. If I miss any, feel free to ask your questions and I'll answer them as long as it seems productive.

First off, the feedback on the website is good feedback. We've gotten it before and the sitemap and overview pages were meant to create easy access to the “quantitative” and “substantial" information that has been pointed to within this forum as what is desired. The Highest Good hubs link more directly to that information with a consistent format that includes a directory of icons that link to the detailed pages related to each section. The top-level pages (heavily criticized here) all link to these pages too. Those pages then have indexes at the top that link directly to the open source detailed pages. These hubs are also linked to from the top and side of every page. This creates the "website tree" of Big Picture Concepts (explaining the scope and nature of the project to new people) --> Overview Pages for Each Area of Focus (explaining these areas) --> Detailed Tutorials and Open Source Content

All that said, we hear your feedback that it’s still hard to dig through and we've just started working on a new site (see our weekly updates for progress) that will have a program/component filter function on the homepage that will allow people to jump directly to whatever they are looking for. The hubs will be front and center to also get people directly to that information if pictures are preferable to search filters.

Rebuilding our site is going to take a long time though and we're not even sure if the filter we want can be built the way we want it yet. Ask me in a few more weeks. In the meantime, I'll put in some work on the homepage to make it even clearer how to find the detailed information easier. Right now I'm thinking of a "Start Here" link at the top and adding more clarity to the Overview page as to how the site is organized.

Next point I see is about “Utopia” - we have a whole page on this specific topic: http://www.onecommunityglobal.org/creating-utopia-on-earth/ It’ll probably generate more negative feedback in this forum, but it is specific to this point. The short summary of that page is that, while it may not be possible to create a sustainable world that meets the needs of all people, we don’t think this means we shouldn’t still try. Most everything amazing in our world today was criticized and considered impossible by most, yet someone decided to do it anyway and here we are.

Still, we recognize that “utopia” is very different for different people and may not even be desirable for others. The same goes for “Highest Good.” So our philosophy is open source everything in as much detail as possible and people can take what they want and use it or change it how they want to make whatever they want. Using “Highest Good” internally is our way of making sure that we are doing our best to focus on Best Practice as our goal. The specifics of how we define and use "Highest Good" as an organization are here: http://www.onecommunityglobal.org/for-the-highest-good-of-all/ Others can do it however they want.

Someone said "Being suspicious of utopias is almost always the right call.” My response to this is that I agree. I’d add though that excessive suspicion often creates non-action and can really slow down progress. Our project has tons of pages because we strive for transparency and clarity of our purpose and intent. Each one of those pages is in response to repeated feedback and the goal with writing them all is to provide enough detail so that those who do their research and are willing to read what we’ve written can get involved if they want to. For those who'd rather just watch and wait, we provide all we do so they can see we’ve at least thought of all these points.

Next point I see is about our economic model and how we compensate volunteers. Our economic overview is here, as previously linked by someone else: http://www.onecommunityglobal.org/highest-good-economics Clicking the icons goes into as much detail as we’ve got so far. It doesn’t cost anything to join our group but we’re a long long way from being funded and our current donations don’t cover operating expenses so the rest is paid for by me. We don’t accept donations from volunteers or core team members.

As for compensating volunteers, we don’t. Everyone is an unpaid volunteer, including me. As I just said, it costs me money to keep this project going and I volunteer full-time on top of that. I believe in our goals and am committed to creating what’s needed so forums like this can be answered with a tangible example rather than more talk. I understand that addressing these points directly here will probably not make a difference to many, so the real goal is to demonstrate it all.

For those who are willing to put time into help us get there faster, we promote them as someone else already outlined and we’re clear about this being how we can compensate people so only people who see that as worthwhile can join. This was criticized as being a sign we’re a scam. It is just transparency about what we have to offer and the reality of our all-volunteer project. Promotion and experience is what we have to offer and people looking for a more capitalist approach aren’t going to be happy volunteering for an organization like ours. Read our application page for volunteers (http://www.onecommunityglobal.org/collaboration/) and you’ll see we’re even more clear about this because it used to take a lot of time fielding all the emails from people trying to sell us stuff, wanting a job, wanting our project to do work for their project, etc.

Still, we’ve got an amazing group of people that have chosen to join the team and work with us to get as far as we’ve gotten. We also still get a fair amount of sales emails and “do our project for us” letters, but it is much less than it used to be.

The rest of the comments look like their questioning the integrity of myself, project viability, the vision and goals of our project, and our team. You don’t know me and it sounds like the extensive effort we’ve gone through to explain our project, how it’s unfolding, what it’s purposed to accomplish, etc. has (for most of you) had the opposite affect of what we’ve intended. Everyone’s entitled to their opinion. My experience though is that it is much easier to sit on the sidelines and complain and criticize things than to take action and work on a solution, becoming the target of such criticism and cynicism.

Knowing this is how it is, our ultimate goal is to be as transparent and detailed as possible as we produce open source starter resources and (eventually) a working prototype including all we’re developing. We invite anyone to join who wants to, don’t accept money to join us, promote and support our helpers as much as we can, integrate to the best of our ability feedback like what I’ve read here, and do our best to create for the good of all people and the planet. We open source it so others can take what they want and do it differently if they like.

Our belief is that by creating for what we feel is the “Highest Good” possible, we’re doing much better than the status quo, and anyone who runs with any of our ideas probably is going to create better than the current paradigm too. We see this as progress and believe that even if we fail to produce the working prototype, we’re still doing way more than the vast majority of organizations with similar goals.

That said, now that it's been pointed out to me, the more I look the more of that new-age guru holistic yoga spirit crystal stuff I see. If their intent really is pure, I think they'd do much much better to distance themselves from *any* spirituality at all. If the website was purely scientific or engineering in nature I'd be much more comfortable, but the entire 50 pages of The Highest Buzzwords We Can Keep Repeating that they bury the real information in are probably the biggest hurdle to taking them seriously.

It just looks like they put way way more focus, effort, and attention to verbosely detailing their social philosophy endlessly than to the actual data. This may not be true, as there is data there as well, but it certainly looks like it.

I think the biggest point One Community is missing, if they are legit, is that the very simple idea of showing the world that a community can be sustainable and still very comfortable thanks to technology, is more important than their ideas about socially living together and all that Highest Good Of All crap. I mean I'm all for considering what's best for everyone, but the cult-like The Highest Good Of All repetition is very off-putting and the whole holistic new-age stuff should be left out of it entirely, as that's individual "beliefs" and many of us want no part of that.

All the "Highest Good" focus is to clarify the mentality we're creating with because we see it as essential for creating a successful prototype. In the past, people wanting to create to escape society, or for survival/preparation reasons, or to make money, etc. have become huge hinderances and distractions from the goal of a working prototype. So we updated the site to be really clear on the type of mentality we're seeking and creating from, and that it is all open source so others can create however they want instead.

Quote

Also I really want an idea as to their funding progress. Their idea will cost millions of dollars. They seem to have some figures in mind already for what they need to spend to get started, so some kind of percentage as to how close they are, updated as more funding comes in, would go a long way toward silencing the Scam-o-meter. I mean, I can't tell from the website if they are two months or three years away from actually building something in the real world. In fact I can't seem to find anywhere in there that they even know when they expect to begin. They have a 5-10 year plan for after they start but nothing about how long from right now do they put down the first sandbag.

I answered this in my first post but some added clarity may be helpful. We don't know when we'll move to the property. We could be funded tomorrow or 5 years from now. We're not ready to fully build yet though, so our focus is on that. This page discusses this in more detail: http://www.onecommunityglobal.org/one-community-now

We're working on a crowdfunding campaign for a piece of the first village too: http://onecommunityglobal.org/earthbag-and-aircrete-dome-home-crowdfunding/ How soon we can launch that though comes down to how much help we have from volunteers. Right now I'm hoping for the beginning of next year but I can't be sure. Everyone has jobs and bills to pay, so people volunteer what they can and I've become much more patient as I've had to let go of all my timelines.

We're moving forward at a really good pace but the task is huge and stop-and-go in a lot of areas because people drop off the volunteer team all the time. So we move forward where we have people to help and put the rest on hold when we don't. As big as our site is, we've probably got double that much information that has yet to be posted because we just don't have enough web designers to put it up or it's not ready yet because the person working on it had life take them in a different direction. All of this is the type of tangible and technical information requested in this forum too, but it take a ton of time to build those pages and we've only got a few people (I'm one of them) capable of doing it. It's coming though and will be great when it's done.

Hi All,(1)I’m Jae, the founder of One Community. Someone emailed me this forum so I joined so I could comment here and address as many of the points as possible. I'll do this to the best of my ability in the order they were presented. If I miss any, feel free to ask your questions and I'll answer them as long as it seems productive. (2)

First off, the feedback on the website is good feedback. We've gotten it before and the sitemap and overview pages were meant to create easy access to the “quantitative” and “substantial" information that has been pointed to within this forum as what is desired. The Highest Good hubs link more directly to that information with a consistent format that includes a directory of icons that link to the detailed pages related to each section. The top-level pages (heavily criticized here) all link to these pages too. Those pages then have indexes at the top that link directly to the open source detailed pages. These hubs are also linked to from the top and side of every page. This creates the "website tree" of Big Picture Concepts (explaining the scope and nature of the project to new people) --> Overview Pages for Each Area of Focus (explaining these areas) --> Detailed Tutorials and Open Source Content

All that said, we hear your feedback that it’s still hard to dig through and we've just started working on a new site (see our weekly updates for progress) that will have a program/component filter function on the homepage that will allow people to jump directly to whatever they are looking for. The hubs will be front and center to also get people directly to that information if pictures are preferable to search filters.

Rebuilding our site is going to take a long time though and we're not even sure if the filter we want can be built the way we want it yet. Ask me in a few more weeks. In the meantime, I'll put in some work on the homepage to make it even clearer how to find the detailed information easier. Right now I'm thinking of a "Start Here" link at the top and adding more clarity to the Overview page as to how the site is organized. (3)

Next point I see is about “Utopia” - we have a whole page on this specific topic: http://www.onecommunityglobal.org/creating-utopia-on-earth/ It’ll probably generate more negative feedback in this forum, but it is specific to this point. The short summary of that page is that, while it may not be possible to create a sustainable world that meets the needs of all people, we don’t think this means we shouldn’t still try. Most everything amazing in our world today was criticized and considered impossible by most, yet someone decided to do it anyway and here we are. (4)

Still, we recognize that “utopia” is very different for different people and may not even be desirable for others. The same goes for “Highest Good.” So our philosophy is open source everything in as much detail as possible and people can take what they want and use it or change it how they want to make whatever they want. Using “Highest Good” internally is our way of making sure that we are doing our best to focus on Best Practice as our goal. The specifics of how we define and use "Highest Good" as an organization are here: http://www.onecommunityglobal.org/for-the-highest-good-of-all/ Others can do it however they want.

Someone said "Being suspicious of utopias is almost always the right call.” My response to this is that I agree. I’d add though that excessive suspicion often creates non-action and can really slow down progress. Our project has tons of pages because we strive for transparency(!!5!!) and clarity of our purpose and intent. Each one of those pages is in response to repeated feedback and the goal with writing them all is to provide enough detail so that those who do their research and are willing to read what we’ve written can get involved if they want to. For those who'd rather just watch and wait, we provide all we do so they can see we’ve at least thought of all these points.

Next point I see is about our economic model and how we compensate volunteers. Our economic overview is here, as previously linked by someone else: http://www.onecommunityglobal.org/highest-good-economics Clicking the icons goes into as much detail as we’ve got so far. It doesn’t cost anything to join our group but we’re a long long way from being funded and our current donations don’t cover operating expenses so the rest is paid for by me. We don’t accept donations from volunteers or core team members.

As for compensating volunteers, we don’t. Everyone is an unpaid volunteer, including me. As I just said, it costs me money to keep this project going and I volunteer full-time on top of that. I believe in our goals and am committed to creating what’s needed so forums like this can be answered with a tangible example rather than more talk. I understand that addressing these points directly here will probably not make a difference to many, so the real goal is to demonstrate it all. (6)

For those who are willing to put time into help us get there faster, we promote them as someone else already outlined and we’re clear about this being how we can compensate people so only people who see that as worthwhile can join. This was criticized as being a sign we’re a scam.(7) It is just transparency about what we have to offer and the reality of our all-volunteer project. Promotion and experience is what we have to offer and people looking for a more capitalist approach aren’t going to be happy volunteering for an organization like ours. Read our application page for volunteers (http://www.onecommunityglobal.org/collaboration/) and you’ll see we’re even more clear about this because it used to take a lot of time fielding all the emails from people trying to sell us stuff, wanting a job, wanting our project to do work for their project, etc.

Still, we’ve got an amazing group of people that have chosen to join the team and work with us to get as far as we’ve gotten. We also still get a fair amount of sales emails and “do our project for us” letters, but it is much less than it used to be.

The rest of the comments look like their questioning the integrity of myself(, project viability, the vision and goals of our project, and our team. You don’t know me and it sounds like the extensive effort we’ve gone through to explain our project, how it’s unfolding, what it’s purposed to accomplish, etc. has (for most of you) had the opposite affect of what we’ve intended.(9) Everyone’s entitled to their opinion. My experience though is that it is much easier to sit on the sidelines and complain and criticize things than to take action and work on a solution, becoming the target of such criticism and cynicism.

Knowing this is how it is, our ultimate goal is to be as transparent and detailed as possible as we produce open source starter resources and (eventually) a working prototype including all we’re developing. We invite anyone to join who wants to, don’t accept money to join us, promote and support our helpers as much as we can, integrate to the best of our ability feedback like what I’ve read here, and do our best to create for the good of all people and the planet. We open source it so others can take what they want and do it differently if they like.

Our belief is that by creating for what we feel is the “Highest Good” possible, we’re doing much better than the status quo, and anyone who runs with any of our ideas probably is going to create better than the current paradigm too. We see this as progress and believe that even if we fail to produce the working prototype, we’re still doing way more than the vast majority of organizations with similar goals. (10)

1 - Get a drink and get comfy kids, it's going to be a long one.

2 - I'll try to keep this to productive and fair questions, unless an easy or good joke arises.

3 - This is a long way to say you're redesigning the site, again, for what, the 4th or so time? Going through this many iterations of a website seems like not the most productive way to spend time. Fundraising, for example, may be a better activity.

4 - While the sentiment may be vaguely noble, there is a logically fallacy here. Are you aware of this?

5 - Right, the meat. Transparency and clarity. Have you published any financials yet? Have you taken any donations? What have those donations been spent on? Do you have an ongoing accountancy procedure for spending? Are the basic financial controls in place? What is the registered structure? Please provide full information that you would typically show a potential investor.

6 - Do you need me to explain why this is a problem? I really shouldn't have to. It's one of the main reasons I mentioned "Fundraising" as a priority as commitment to the cause is great but doesn't tend to put food in the fridge. For reference, I am more than qualified to undertake a few of the roles you advertise for, but I'm actually insulted that you think I, or anyone else, would be willing to commit unknown quantities of time to a project you don't even seem to be actively fundraising for. This raise further questions about what exactly have you achieved during the project period and other basic questions.

7 - It is a strong hallmark of a scam, to be fair. And you don't really offer any tangible benefits to offset it. How much business (as a figure) have your partners raised as a result of your marketing? How many leads? Conversion rate? Are any of these numbers above zero?

8 - Would you consider these criticisms fair? Do you consider yourself suitably qualified and experienced to run a project of this nature? What is your previous business experience and which companies can we look at for reference?

9- Please confirm the full age of the project and milestone achievements to date. Please briefly outline financials for the same period and indicate spending.

10- Who are the orgs with similar goals? What have you accomplished in comparison to them?

I think that covers the main stuff, If I've missed anything important I'll be sure to cover it later.

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Nine naked Men just walking down the road will cause a heap of trouble for all concerned.

So, as far as I can tell from the links you linked me, you don't have any funding at all towards the property as of yet, and the next crowdfunding campaign goal is to raise funds to build three domes within the same county as "the property" but still nothing to actually purchase said property with?

I just don't understand where you expect this sudden extremely large amount of funding to come from, whether 5 days from now or 10 years from now? It's like you fully expect to get this one specific property and did all this research and stuff into it, but have no reason that I can see to think that much funding is even somewhat likely to come your way, ever.

Or did I miss something?

Logged

There's good news tonight. And bad news. First, the bad news: there is no good news. Now, the good news: you don't have to listen to the bad news.Zen Without Zen Masters

Quote from: Cain

Gender is a social construct. As society, we get to choose your gender.

Thank you, but damn. I really wanted to drink their kool-aid. It looked so delicious.

Why does a simple idea like building a community around the idea of being as sustainable as possible, have to always be fucking bullshit artists and their magical thinking bullshit.

I wish I was better at seeing this shit for what it is. Luckily you lot indulge me and save me a lot of frustration down the road. Thanks.

Because real trained professionals who have degrees in things like urban planning, ecology, and sustainability get jobs with organizations that seek to increase sustainability practices in places people already live.

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“I’m guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk,” Charles Wick said. “It was very complicated.”

1. Hopefully not, this is probably not as good a use of my time as redesigning the site, which you criticized in #3. I'll stick with it though as long as it is productive. The current site has now been updated to make it easier to find the most developed aspects of our project. 2. Jokes expected based on what I've read so far3. What we put time into is based on who we have volunteering to do the work. Right now we have someone willing to put time into redesign the site for us. This page discusses why we're not focusing more on seeking funding: http://www.onecommunityglobal.org/one-community-now4. Debating this point is probably not the best use of my time here5. Our financials are not significant enough to warrant this yet and we don't have anyone volunteering to do the work. If you'd like to create something you'd be happy with, you are invited to join the team and do so. What you describe is something we want. Your comment on #6, however, makes it clear our project isn't something you'd wish to help with.6. See link above for why focusing on fundraising is not the best use of our time right now. I understand that this is a reason you wouldn't desire to help us. I'm sorry this is somehow "insulting" to you. Our site and ongoing updates blog shares what we've achieved and are achieving. 7. Yes, volunteering with us has generated business for some of our partners. We also refer to the directly since none of us our operating as consultants. That said, the vast majority of people who volunteer with us aren't doing if for financial gain. Most people volunteer with us because they believe in what we're doing and want to help and/or they have free time and skills and are looking for a way to apply those skills beyond making up a project of their own.8. I consider these criticisms fair. Everyone's entitled to their opinion. You ask, "Do you consider yourself suitably qualified and experienced to run a project of this nature?" I'm the only one doing it. Anyone could take what we've done so far and do it themselves if they want. There are definitely people way more qualified than me, but they aren't doing the work. My feeling answering your questions is that I'm being interviewed by you for a job or large-scale funding and I'm guessing that is not the case and wondering what the value of this is for you or me. If you think we're a scam, I'm ok with that. 9. We've been working since 2010. We achieved non-profit status in 2011. Again, we're a 100% volunteer organization so the process has been much slower than if we were writing checks. Listing our milestones is truly not a good use of my time. Look at what we've created (now easier to find on the site) and if you like it, great. If not, that's ok too. The bottom line is we're a group doing something and organizing likeminded people. It sounds like we don't pass your criteria for evaluation. We're working to get there for you and others, but not there yet. 10. "Other orgs with similar goals" is something I'll leave for others to evaluate and list. This could be broken down into components like housing, food, etc. or evaluated based on global-change goals, or other criteria. I'm happy for all other groups taking action. What we've accomplished and are accomplishing is what our site is all about and how this compares to the projects of others is subjective.